Beastly Things
by Stealth Dragon
Summary: Another day, another culture, another nightmare. Shep whump, Gen.


Rating: T, Gen

Warnings: Language, violence, torture, some gore

Characters: John, some team

Summary: another day, another culture, another nightmare.

A/N: Just a little something I had whipped up for Halloween and posted on my journal. Beta'd by Sharpes_Hussy, so please no pointing out spelling or grammar errors.

-oOo-

Beastly Things

by

Stealth Dragon

John looks up at what he can see of the sky through the naked trees. More than naked. Stripped down to the skeleton, bony and knobby and dead like they were never alive to begin with. And so damn many it's like they've ripped the sky into pieces of pathetically clinging twilight.

"Can't you give a guy a break?" John begs, and it's not unmanly. No way. The brokeness and that last bit ending on a strangled sob, that's just an accident. Not unmanly at all. But if it is, then oh friggin' well. Busted, bleeding, half-naked, strung up by his hands like meat in a locker; he's been there, done that because cultures can be weird, other cultures bullies, everyone a down right jackass, but that doesn't make each time around any less of an agony.

He thinks he might have been hanging for three hours, but that's just him placating himself. It's probably been less while feeling longer, his legs ready to give up the ghost. When they do, that's when he'll die a slightly quicker death as opposed to this slower death. He's stretched out, barely allowed enough room to stand flat on his feet, and it's put pressure on his chest, muscles pulling on broken ribs just dying to puncture something. It's possible he might suffocate, one way or another.

He hopes he suffocates.

There are worse ways to die.

The patchy twilight drifts away until there is only black. The darkness clicks and chitters, like excited cicadas. John breathes deep and holds it.

-oOo-

Sometimes, John has these dreams. He's running, sometimes through a forest, sometimes over a plain, sometimes the halls of Atlantis. He's not running because he has to, but because he wants to. He runs fast to make Ronon jealous, fast to make a cheetah jealous. It should be like flying, but it's so much a part of him there is no exhilaration, only contentment.

Unless he is running after something. Then it's like flying.

-oOo-

John steps through the gate right into "holy crap something's wrong we need to get out of here _now_." It isn't anything obvious, just a feeling prickling his spine and raising the hairs on the back of his neck. The way the welcome committee is smiling doesn't help; too big, too self-satisfied, we-know-something-you-don't-know and nanni-nanni-boo-boo. Being a first contact mission (well, for John, Rodney and Ronon. Teyla's people have been trading with these people for years) John can't say if what he's seeing is par for the course for these folks or if they really know something John's team doesn't.

Looking to Teyla, her confused expression confirms it's the latter. John tenses, gripping his P-90 until his knuckles blanch and cussing the fact that, according to Teyla, alliance with these people can take three days at least, so it'll be three days before Atlantis knows something is wrong.

These people are farmer types, medieval there abouts, with pitch forks, bows and arrows and no concept of personal hygiene. Coming to the Pegasus Galaxy has taught John in many ironic ways not to judge a society by its farming implements. Some of the nicest and most intelligent folks they met were medieval peasants; the most fanatically suspicious bastards technically advanced. And it's rude to jump to conclusions.

"We have been waiting for you," says the old man in the dirty blue and gold robe, local wizard and psychotic priest with buggy eyes and the biggest smile of all. "Seize them."

Bastards it is.

"Fall back," John yells, firing his P-90 into the air. Problem is, peasants can be damn fast. They surge en mass grabbing John's arms, shoulders, around his waist and his legs. He can hear his team shouting, hear Ronon's blaster until it suddenly stops. His weapons are ripped from him and then he's shoved onto his stomach, pinned to the ground as someone ties ropes around his wrists and ankles. There's a sharp sting in his neck, and suddenly he's lethargic and obnoxiously cooperative. He's lifted up, bound and limp as a dead fish, and dragged over the muddy ground. He can see out of the corner of his eye his team suffering the same.

They're taken to a village of mud huts with thatched roofs. In the center of town, a wooden platform that's bare at the moment, but John would bet good money it's seen its fair share of hangings and beheadings. Blue Saruman climbs the steps to stand on the top. The villagers dump John at his feet like a sack.

Blue Saruman thumps him in the side of the head with his foot. "You are the leader? The one they call John Sheppard?"

"Mmmmmaaaybeee," John slurs, and realizes he's drooling.

"You are," Blue Saruman says, and John thinks maybe he should call him BS. BS won't stop grinning. He snaps gnarled fingers and a broad-shouldered kid waves a picture in front of John's face. The picture is a wanted poster, and John's the guy who's wanted. Stupid, friggin' Genii.

"You are of the Atlanteans, whose sins are many and great. The Wraith wakers, the disease bringers, the bane of our galaxy. We were warned of you."

John could easily guess who had done the warning. Damn stupid Atlantis-hating coalition members.

"It is our right and glory to be the ones to deliver just punishment." BS says, chest puffed until he looks ready to explode. John really wishes he would. "You will be the first, John Sheppard, to meet the fate the Ancestors have deemed it our right to give."

_News flash, buddy. I happen to be one of your precious Ancestor's really distant brats_. But John is so numb all he can do is add to the spit puddle forming under his cheek.

"Prepare him and carry him to the Giving Grounds!" BS shouts.

John is being dragged again. He's not sure where, only that there sure are a lot of buck naked trees making him think of late fall creeping toward a very cold winter. He is propped up onto his feet that are unbound along with his hands. Then he's stripped – vest, jacket, both shirts and it's not creeping toward winter, it is winter. He can hear his team's drunken protests as his hands are yanked over his head, rebound and pulled taunt. He forces his wobbly head up to see himself tied to something like a chin-up bar, only made from thick beams of wood carved in the images the most grotesque looking _things_ he has ever seen, kind of skeletal, kind of human, but covered in spikes and spines. This would be the part where his heart starts pounding, but the drug won't let that happen.

The farmers remedy this by pouring the nastiest drink of water in existence down John's throat. He's choking and gasping and, suddenly, he has control of his body.

He coughs a, "What the hell," out of habit. The words are startled and twitchy, not exactly how a bad-ass leader should sound when he has a panicked team in need of reassurance. But it's impossible to be anything _but_ panicked. The farmers have started a bonfire several feet from John. Other farmers are decking themselves out in their ugliest costumes: wooden masks, skin masks, cloaks of feathers and of leather. They put on gloves tipped with nails or real animal claws. Flasks are passed around, and when the pipes start playing the festivities begin.

The people dance: leaps and crouches, spinning, twirling, waving, laughing, screaming. They circle the fire, then circle John. Someone in an animal mask twirls around out of sight behind John. He feels the fire of something sharp rake across his back. He arches and cries out, his team cries out begging for it to stop, but that only makes the people laugh. They scratch him and hit him with bludgeons like miniature bats, one across the chest, a blow to the stomach, a rake across the lower right side above the hip and, oops, there goes one of the floating ribs with a snap he can hear. He's dripping blood and his body is humming with pain. He's a damn pinata of flesh and his insides are the candy.

A blow to the face – black eye ahoy. One below the armpit – there goes another rib. Claws across the stomach where he'd just been punched, several across the flank, another across the back of his neck. He's covered in blood, can barely see, barely breathe. He's pain, pain, pain and _ow, ow, ow friggin ow like a bitch! Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop!_ But it keeps coming and the monsters in the masks find it ever so hilarious.

And then. "It is enough. They come. We must go."

They're gone, just like that. John doesn't know when, or how it's possible they can be so quiet about it, so he's sure he must have past out at some point. He opens his only working eye and forces his wobbling head up to look at the sky.

-oOo-

It feels right when John is running after something, like this is where he needs to be, what he needs to be doing. Like something he has kept locked away for too long. This is right. Natural. It's okay, so he lets it happen. He is faster than the thing he chases and when he captures it, he realizes it is not about the chase.

It's about the kill.

-oOo-

They come out of the dark, the things carved into the post John is hanging from. There are three moons on this world, fragmented when seen through the trees, and now that the moons are out the darkness can't hide much. The creatures are both people and insects, double jointed, scuttling, spined _things_ that crawl over obstacles as easily as a spooked cockroach. They look at John with big, black eyes bisected by a golden pupil. Their faces are skulls and those are some big, sharp looking teeth they got, there. When they open their mouths, mandibles pour out.

"Oh hell no," John whimpers. He doesn't care that it's not manly. He's neck deep in his worst nightmare and it's about to eat him alive. The bug people swarm closer, clicking, clicking, clicking, scaled skin shiny in the moonlight like bits of chitin. John tries to curl into himself, putting more strain on his arms.

A bug person moves in close, an inch between them. John can smell what it last ate and whatever it was had been long dead and rotten. The thing opens its mouth. The mandibles come out. They are the length of a hand, covered in mini-versions of the spines on the body and tipped with a transparent claw. The bug person makes a sound like a rattlensake tail and the mandibles vibrate.

John takes another breath that's cut short by his tightening lungs. He gasps, "Make it quick... Golem." He's going to take it like a man but, crap, he thinks of his team and these _things_ ripping them to pieces. Then he thinks _crap, no, no, no, please, no_. The bug thing clicks, rattles and clicks. It sniffs at him, tilting its head like a curious dog.

"Bad... dog..." John rasps. He sobs. "Hurry up."

The thing trills between its clicks and, then, it's like John is drugged again. His muscles go soft, relaxing. His heart slows down, his breathing with it, and it's like he's no longer afraid. He doesn't flinch when a dead-cold hand touches his chest, or when glass smooth fingers start tracing the lines of his face from jaw to cheek to hairline. Because every thing's all right, peachy keen, hunky dory. John knows it is, even if he doesn't know how he knows. But he knows.

Bug man, or woman, clacks its jaw. It lunges forward.

And John is free, the strain off his arms and pressure of his chest. Ice cold hands lower him to the ground. They lay him down gently, let him curl into himself against the pain now and the pain that's sure to come. Dirt grinds into the cuts and soak into his blood, making him twice as filthy.

There is nothing for a long time, no touches, no pain, no anything. Just the clicking and trilling that John knows should be scaring the hell out of him, except it doesn't, and that scares him more. He figures they're like cats; play with your food before eating it. Let it crawl away, then catch it and pull it back, repeat. Makes it much more delectable. John closes his one good eye. He's not giving them the satisfaction. He's too tired to even try. Too relaxed, like he could sleep if he wanted, but he fights it since he knows better.

Someone screams.

John opens his eye.

BS is being dragged by three bug men/women, kicking and writhing like an infant. They dump him on the cold coals of the bonfire, circle him, kick him down when he tries to rise, pull him back when he crawls away.

They swarm, all of them, packing together into one dark ball of shiny chitin and spikes. Blue Saruman's screams are the genderless, inhuman shrieks of the desperate and dying. They grow wet before they end abruptly like someone crushing a bugle mid-play.

John closes his eye and covers his ears even though it hurts to move his arms. He really doesn't want to be witness to this. He has enough nightmares to deal with. But when something soft and warm brushes over his body he snaps awake with a shudder. He flinches to see BS's robe now covering his body. It's dry, doesn't smell of blood, which means the things took it off BS before feeding.

When John lifts his head to pinpoint the location of the bug people, they are gone.

He looks up.

Pain be damned, he scrabbles away.

What is left of BS – bones held together by pieces of meat - is hanging from the bar.

-oOo-

He tears into soft flesh with claws and teeth, making sounds that he shouldn't be able to make. It's okay, though. It's natural. It's the way things are. The blood is warm and sweet and so is the flesh. It's okay.

John lets it happen.

-oOo-

The villagers may be bastards but they aren't stupid. John wakes to the gasps of a young boy and sees the boy tripping over his own gangly limbs in his mindless dash to get away. John rolls his eyes to BS's body still hanging, dried out or frozen from the cold. John has propped himself up against a tree wrapped in the old man's robe. Drying blood has made the cloth stick to his wounds. They itch like hell but he's too tired and hurting too much to even try to peel them off. He's just going to have to wait for his team.

The villagers arrive and, surprise surprise, they're grief stricken, terrified and staring at John like he's a god come down to pour his almighty wrath out on the sinners. It's chaos at first, but a few of them get it through their heads that it might be a good idea to be nice to the guy the bug monsters just spared. John doesn't get his own luck, but now is not the time to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The villagers do the other smart thing of freeing John's team and letting them be the ones to carry him back on a litter – a nice, sturdy, padded litter, John wrapped in what had to be one of the village's best blankets.

"What the hell happened?" Rodney keeps demanding, while Teyla keeps shushing him. They don't stop at the village but keep going to the 'gate. The villagers escort them until Ronon snarls at them to back off. John hadn't realized until the villagers are gone that he was shivering. Now that it's just him and his team, the little adrenaline keeping him awake peters out, and John sleeps.

-oOo-

The meat is good, the blood is good.

It's all okay.

Until John looks into the eyes of what he kills. Always a mistake. Sometimes it's Rodney, sometimes Teyla, Ronon, Elizabeth or Carson. Sometimes it's his mother, his father, his brother, ex-wife, Mitch, Dex, Holland... Always someone... Always.

No.

It's not okay.

It's anything but okay.

-oOo-

"So many worlds are protected from the Wraith with a price," Teyla says. "The creatures of their world frighten the Wraith, it seems. Providing the creatures with a sacrifice has created a truce. They must give the beasts an animal weekly, but providing human flesh spares them from this for a month."

"_The Village_ meets _Silence of the Lambs_," says Rodney with disgust. They're gathered around John's bed, Rodney and Teyla to the side, Ronon at the foot.

"Guess those things weren't pleased with the offering," Ronon says, smiling. "So they took it out on the old guy. The villagers are pretty freaked out about it. They kept giving baskets of meat and fruit to Lorne and his men. Kept apologizing."

"But the real question is _why_ the monsters weren't happy with the offering?" Rodney cuts in. He looks at John like he's supposed to have all the answers.

John glares at him. "How the hell should I know?"

He must have let something slip as to how freaked-the-hell-out he still is. Teyla and Ronon exchange looks, then Ronon is hauling a protesting Rodney out of the infirmary by the collar. Teyla, smiling, touches her forehead to John's, parting with the gentle command for him to rest.

John would be happy to oblige. He's pleasantly numb and can finally breathe. The drugs are making him light headed and tired.

But he doesn't want to sleep.

Carson arrives for a quick check to make sure nothing's infected. Earlier the Scott kept going on and on about never having to put so many stitches into a man as he had put in John's hide. John had replied dryly to cry to The Guiness Book of World Records about it.

"Doc," John says while Carson studies the three lines of stitches over John's busted ribs.

"Aye, lad?"

John looks at his hand resting upturned on the bed. His wrists are bandaged, hiding the abrasions, and a tube snakes out from the back.

"I am one hundred percent John Sheppard, right?"

Carson looks at John in confusion. "Aye?"

"So there's no chance of, you know, a relapse or something? _Right_?"

Carson relaxes. "Oh, of course not, son. Believe me. I'll admit the treatment was a little dicey at first, but we perfected it as you recovered. Trust me. No relapses."

John nods.

"Don't get me wrong. It's possible there might be left overs," Carson continues. "Like shadows or... or like scarring. Protein tags, for example. Fragments of coding, maybe. A mental component. Nothing you need to worry about. You are human, lad. Believe me."

John nods again.

"Get some rest, son," Carson says. He's about to leave.

John swallows and says, "Think I could get something to help with that?"

Carson smiles reassuringly. "Of course."

John waits. While he waits, he thinks of the bug men, black in the night. But when the moons' light hit them just right, at the right angle, sometimes the scales had looked blue.

-oOo-

It's not okay.

John pulls away. He scrapes the blood off his mouth, his hands. He spits it out while he scrapes it from his skin. Chitin is pulled away with the blood, peeled from his skin like the skin of an orange, trailing strings of slime. Underneath is pale flesh and hair, slick but drying fast. When the blood and the scales are gone, and he can no longer taste the sweetness, he is John Sheppard again.

One hundred percent.

Until next time.

But that's okay.

It's just a dream.

The End


End file.
